Second Year Reading List

Some of us decided that next year's syllabus should be decided by our cohort.

Three themes were suggested:

1. Texts that have an impact.
2. Texts published/released within the last 12 months (i.e. Agamben _Nudities_)

Two students can put forth readings per class, and since plenty of professors at the UofA seem to like this sort of collaboration, i think it fits perfectly with the aims of the course.

good day.

Michael Hardt on US Education

Michael Hardt on US higher education. Published in Libération December 2, 2010

http://uninomade.org/us-education-and-the-crisis/

Cuts, Conviviality, and Capitalism

Hi all, 


Some of you might find this to be of interest:


http://reallyopenuniversity.wordpress.com/2010/11/25/the-antagonistic-university-a-conversation-on-cuts-conviviality-and-capitalism/

See you all tomorrow!

I

Identifying Problems and Solutions

I’ve been staring at the blank page on my computer screen for at least a half hour, and I still am not sure what to write. I want to have a thorough, engaged response to MacIntyre, Readings, and Ibsen, and the ideas that have been put forward so far. But there’s something very difficult about engaging with so many different perspectives, so many different takes. Is a cohesive response possible? Worthwhile? Useful? What should I say, and why should I say it? And why do I think I should say it?

Several people here have chosen to respond only to Ibsen, others only to MacIntyre, or Readings. Some people have decided to talk about other things—the department meeting, McLeane’s University rankings, and the purpose of this class and these responses (which I’m personally still not sure of, to be honest).

I think I have maybe one worthwhile thing to add (though I’m not quite sure here how we’re defining ‘worthwhile’): is perhaps this class itself, and these responses, indicative of the larger problems of the humanities (read EFS) in the university? We might each know what we’re doing and thinking individually, but we don’t seem to know how to come to consensus (if we even want to come to consensus), how to broach a topic, how to be on the same page. What are we trying to ‘solve’ here? Or do we want a solution? What questions are we supposed to be asking? What are we doing, and how can we do it better? How do other people (those outside our institution) think we’re doing? Or is that a question we want to ask? Do we want consensus? Do we even know the problem?

I guess here is the point where I talk about at least one of the readings. MacIntyre, for instance, identifies the (a?) problem as: the exclusion of “substantive moral and theological enquiry” from today’s liberal university (226). He offers as the solution what he knows people might take as ‘utopian’: universities that situate themselves, take a stance, and then engage in (friendly?) combat. I’m not sure I agree with either the identification of the problem or the solution, but at least he’s expressing what he feels is the problem and offering some kind of a solution. And I suppose we can admire that, if we feel that is a valuable thing.

On Distance

It’s no wonder we have anxiety about what we do--or, to reflect on Derek’s and Andy’s posts, about how we represent ourselves, or are represented. Bill Readings asks, “What intervention can be made in the university today, as it abandons its role as the flagship of national culture, but before it embarks irrevocably upon the path of becoming a bureaucratic corporation?” (475-76). We struggle to identify a role for the contemporary university, never mind our own roles within it. We’re not even sure what to teach our students or what to call our courses. A curriculum of ‘Great Books’ is too homogenized, but without it we have no books in common. “The university no longer has a hero for its grand narrative,” (477) claims Readings. Academics are not Prince Hamlet, nor were meant to be. We dwell in ruins.

Plagued by ambiguity, we embrace it, to an almost absurd degree. Let’s not talk about literature anymore; let’s talk about ‘texts’ instead. Texts can be anything, and the term allows to us continue to wonder about--and fight about--what it is that we do. Like Nick, I doubt we need to worry too much about creating conflict, or, as Readings puts it, “refiguring the university as a locus of dissensus” (478). Maybe we haven’t yet descended to ‘epic’ fights, but we’re getting there, if not in the hallways, then at least on blogs.

I think the outcome of all this ambiguity is an extreme distancing, an estrangement, from the work that we do in academe, and from ourselves--hence all the anxiety. MacIntyre argues that “what is needed is some way of enabling the members of an audience to regard themselves from an ironic distance,” but I agree with Camille that such ironic distancing may be easier for white, male heterosexuals than others, and that female students may not be amenable to the discourse of confrontation MacIntyre proposes. Besides, it seems to me that we have plenty of ironic distance already; indeed we have nothing but. What relationship do we have with our ‘texts’ anymore? Of course we can’t talk about the way they might make us feel, or how they might move us, or draw us in. Maybe that sort of subjective involvement belongs to the ancient days when we read literature. Today, we must, to use Readings’ phrase, “think without identity.”

A professor commented recently on a paper of mine, “Go ahead: judge. English studies are crying out for authoritative analyses after so long trying, unavailingly, to proceed without them.” I was startled to realize that I had argued without judging, that I had in fact been hesitant to commit to a personal position on this ‘text.’ Hesitancy, ambiguity, fragmentation, distance--do we love the questions, or are we simply lost in them?